The truck was driving towards Ypres around 1.15 pm when its load of flax waste suddenly caught fire just before the exit in Menen. The trucker immediately stopped and notified the fire brigade. The fire was accompanied by a large cloud of smoke. “We had the fire under control quickly, but because it was flax waste, we had to put out the fire for hours,” says Lieutenant Jean-Pierre Demeestere of the Fluvia emergency zone. “That is a difficult product to extinguish. it immediately fire again.” There was no other option than to transfer the flax waste into other containers, which gave the fire service hours of work.
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Motorists who entered the A19 just before the fire started stood still for two hours between the R8 in Kortrijk and the exit in Menen. Then the police had all the cars turn around. The A19 towards Ypres between the R8 and Menen was closed for hours.
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